Rejected Mate and Following Fate novel Chapter 101

“Ten years ago, it was about all wolves… a species that dared to kill his woman and his unborn child for merely existing. When he found out she lived and died at the hands of the Santo pack and he thought his child too, he concentrated his hatred on one pack alone.” Leyanne wanders casually across the floor, shrugging as she goes, and all eyes follow her. An awkward quiet around the room instantly as we all digest this.

“That’s why the fog stayed only with us and them … nothing further out. We saw no vampires in our entire trip to find Leyanne.” Meadow fills in the blanks, adding to what I guess she spoke to the witch about, and brings my mind to the truth of her observation. Outside the Santo domain, we never picked up on a single vampire in eight hours of cross-country travel. Not one sense of them, no scent in the air at all. It’s why Leyanne didn’t care about leaving us out in the darkness alone. She knew we weren’t in danger so far from the mountain because vampires weren’t hunting any pack that wasn’t Santo. It makes sense now.

“Correct. Because there were none. I told you; vampires dwell where people don’t and only venture where wolves are when they have a bone to chew. This time, that bone was buried in your father’s garden. Under his patio…” She seems almost smug at her euphemism, smiles with a hint of sarcastic glee, and dusts the mantle as though she’s merely made a small joke. That accent of hers making it sound more like a mocking sentence than a pretty important proclamation. Her calmness grates on my growing nerves and I shuffle in my seat.

“So, the attacks on the home, the tests with the weapon? We weren’t just unlucky…. we were always the target!” Cesar pipes in, repeating the obvious and Leyanne nods, turning slowly to face us as a group and moves back against the mantel to get comfy. I stare at her with a sense of surreal, feeling like this is all a weird dream and digesting it slowly.

If only the vampires knew how ironic that was, what they did. That they almost killed the reason they were even there in the first place. My father would have seen me dead at his own hands was it not for Colton and his pack saving me that night. It’s almost funny.

Their weapon, their tests, hit the home that concealed his child for almost a decade and yet the pack he hated protected me. If only he knew how close he was to taking down his daughter, the Santo heir, Juan and their Luna at the same time. My death would have ended it all, by taking the three of them with me. Yet it wouldn’t have balanced anything at all. I would have died at vampire hands.

“They’re shadowing us here…. because of our bloodline. No wonder they never left. They stalked us, they persisted. And yet the war never progressed. They were waiting and biding time, even if that took years to get past our boundaries.” Matteo runs a hand across his face, his voice deflated as minor shock reverberates around the stillness of the room. I sense Colton tensing beside me and glance up, catching his eye on me as he swallows noticeably and then he turns and looks at all the faces, locked on the witch and the eerie pause to our normally humdrum group.

“There was no war intended. It was always about avenging Marina and Alora. And now he knows about her, which means he focused his efforts on avenging her mother instead. He knew I’d take care of the witches in no time, and that the mongrels he left were no real threat to his child. With Alora’s brother in tow, and his need to avenge Marina too, they aren’t walking away quietly as we hoped. He still wants to address the balance. Darrius warned us because he knows you have people there that still shouldn’t be part of this, and Vampires don’t lay down grudges when vengeance has been their path for decades.” Leyanne sighs heavily.

“Why would he warn us? What does he care?” I finally find my voice and question the motives of that dark weirdo. He didn’t seem all too invested in wolf lives back at that road.

“Darrius is a strange one, honor bound. He’s a Shadow Knight commander of the highest order and he’s never agreed with Varro’s need to crush your kind in revenge. It goes against his code, so he stood back and lifted no finger in the war of the past and kept the Shadow Knights out of it.” Leyanne’s voice softens and I can tell, despite her cool manner and indifferent tone and Darrius’ obvious darker disposition, she has respect for him. Even if she makes it out like it’s a flaw that he has morals.

“What do we do, Cole… those are our people?” Radar sits down suddenly as though shock weakens his legs, pulling my attention to the eyes around the room and I swallow hard as I try to compute all this. I feel like crying and yet something more terrifying simmers inside that we should really be worried about.

“He doesn’t know that if Juan dies… I do.” I point out, mumbling it loud enough for those around to hear and Colton slides his hand over mine and sits on the arm to press close to me. Giving me his comfort because he can sense my anxiety, confusion, and fear. Leyanne exhales heavily, an expression of minor irritation crossing her face as she focuses on me.

“It’s not a detail Darrius would have excluded but that won’t stop Varro wiping out everyone else who’s there and making Juan watch. I don’t think Juan’s death is his goal….. it’s vengeance he seeks. Even if he has to kill everyone to get to him and then lock him in a cage for the rest of his days. Varro is cruel and torture is better suited to his personality. I believe he’ll make Juan suffer until the end of his days.” Her words soothe and yet horrify me at the same time.

“We can’t let them kill everyone at the mountain. There’s so many innocents.” I choke out the words, my head bombarded with so many faces, as my eyes mist over at the thought of losing them, because of my mother. These were people she fought alongside to protect. How was she to know the war was because of us.

“I told him that, but Darrius, he’s not exactly the warmest of souls. His response was merely that many innocents had died in the past, what was a few more if we wanted an end to this. All Darrius cares about is that he no longer gets dragged along watching his future king waste his time on an inferior species. He wants him back where he belongs, back where he is to eventually rule. He warned us so we know what’s coming, but he won’t sway Varro either way.” Leyanne shrugs with one shoulder, making it clear that Darrius is not really going to be of any use to us in this. He’s an information passer at most and his loyalty is with Varro, even if what he’s doing is against Darrius’ code.

“Son of a bitch! That’s what you get for trusting a cold-blooded monster like them. Fucking vampires, man!” Remo is the one to explode, throwing his arms out in agitation but Leyanne doesn’t seem to look offended at all.

I dare say she doesn’t trust Darrius any more than we do and he’s more of an acquaintance for her benefit than a friend. I’m not even surprised that cold blooded demon doesn’t give two craps about innocents. I got the impression he doesn’t feel at all; like he has no humanity. He can stand back and watch many die over these decades and do nothing, when he has an army of his own that could have intercepted in some way, so many times.

Shadow Knights… pffft. What good are they? It’s as much a crime to stand idle and do nothing as it is to be part of the attacks and killing innocents.

“If we want to save them. Then it has to be done by us. We have to go to the mountain and protect them ourselves. With us they stand a chance, without us… they die.” Colton gets up, letting go of my hand and starts pacing to match Cesar. Both seemingly intent on passing by one another as they walk back and forth on the rug.

My anxiety elevates thirty million times more just watching the restlessness of the two most tactical minded among us. I know his head is in overdrive as he thinks this through, and I squeeze my eyes shut to get my breathing under control. Knowing what he says is fact and that they don’t stand a chance as a fractured pack. We took the strongest and they don’t have any real leadership left with them.

I thought we were done with fighting and now less than a day later we’ll have to do it all over again. Only this time my brother is on the other side. We’ll have to side with Juan against everything we feel, for the sake of the people and march out there to unify. I can’t believe this is what we’re even contemplating but I know in my heart that Colton’s right.

“And when we get there…. can we be sure that Juan won’t mount an offensive against us, even if we’re trying to help?” Radar the one who always sees flaws in our plans, points out the discrepancies, and questions the angles. I look to Colton with a nod, that it could be a very plausible outcome and we should seriously take time to think about this before we decide. Juan vowed to never let his son take back his power… Juan won’t see us as anything but an enemy if we go home. Even if we fight to save them.

Colton fixes his gaze on me, stalling in his pacing and exhales loudly. His whole posture stiff and tense and I can feel his stress levels hitting the roof, even at a distance. The weight of his emotion pulling my insides tight.

“We can’t keep ignoring what happens to them. We’ve done it for too long and this time, if we do it again, none of them will be alive by morning. I can’t fail them anymore…. what kind of an alpha does that make me?” He drops his chin to his chest, breaking his focus on me and I catch the moist sheen over his eyes from here as he battles with the turmoil of this situation. His guilt heavy because I know that he’s struggled all these months with what to do about the ones we left behind. It’s plagued him endlessly.

“We could warn them, make them leave… get those out that we can in daylight. I mean they still need darkness to attack, right? So we have time?” Carmen this time, trying to find a solution with a somewhat upbeat tone as she perches on the edge of her seat. I sink my head into my hands and rub my temples in defeated exhaustion. My brain throbbing from all of this and emotions strangling me at the same time. Anxiety growing and hemming me in at the wall and hard place we find ourselves lodged between.

“If they want them that badly, no matter where we take them, they’ll still come. And we don’t have room here, not for the long run. If this is what he needs to end this, there’s no outrunning it. Colton’s right. We have to go there and protect who we can and let Varro kill who he needs to while making sure Juan isn’t one of them.” Meadow is the voice of reason as this all swirls inside my head and makes me dizzy. I know that this is because of me and I can’t accept that the losses and deaths, all of this, came out of my being conceived. I can’t process it.

“Son of a bitch… fuck stupid mate bonds.” Radar snorts out through gritted teeth, his anger flaring in his raspy tone. He storms off towards the bookcase before slamming a fist into a row of them and sends them scattering to the floor with a clattering noise, giving me a jolt as he does so. My heart hammering as I recover from flinching at his sudden aggressive display, but it only adds to my uptight tetchiness. It’s no guessing where his anger is focused and that in itself makes me feel worse. If only Radar had been Sierra’s fated mate, then maybe everything would have been so different.

I exhale and throw my head back on my chair and try to relax my sprawled body, inhale slowly as nausea rises around me and pushes out the deafening guilt that’s building. I only end up stiff as a board and unable to release the tightness of my shoulder muscles as tears fog out my vision. Hormones are making this worse and I’m already exhausted to the point that I can’t think straight.

“There’s maybe a chance I ….. if I can see Jasper and my father. Maybe I can talk to them, stop this. Maybe I can somehow….” I don’t even know. I’m deflated, grasping, consumed by the responsibility of all this and I feel completely useless. This is partly about me, so shouldn’t I be able to fix it?

Didn’t the fates pick me because of all of this? Why don’t I have the answers if they have been guiding me all along? What good am I? Or my gifts that can’t be used. I don’t get why it seems just when I might have a purpose, the fates throw in a curveball and render me useless all over again.

Knowing I was alive didn’t even stop this, so what really am I here for? What is the point of me being what I am when I feel shackled and useless.

“You heard Jasper… Santo is the enemy, and he won’t stop until he takes revenge. Not even the mate bond could make a difference, not his sister being alive, and certainly not pleading.” Carmen sounds bitter, pulling me to sit up slightly with her tone and I look to her. Catching her eye and biting my lip on the surging pain as I recognize her inner sadness. I’m not ready to admit defeat when we still have hope, even if she seems to be. She deadpan locks her gaze on mine and unflinchingly shakes her head at me, as though telling me this is not a solution.

“Maybe the two of us, there, ready to stand in front of him and die… maybe that will make a difference. I know my brother, he’s not evil. He’s not a killer. He’s in pain and he has a stubborn head and a loyal heart, and he thinks this is what he needs to stop the agony in his existence.” I mumble, attempting to appeal to her, trying to send some sort of begging message, hoping to invest her in this a little more. I can tell by her closed off expression and her bleak and cold aura that she isn’t buying it. I know what she’s thinking. That this is futile, and she won’t be a part of being humiliated for a second time at my brother’s hands when it will change nothing.